CARLI BERRY
Marguerite Stevens is a one-of-a-kind artist in Qualicum Beach.
She’s a realistic painter and she’s fascinated with reflections.
“While I was at university in Calgary… the downtown (had) all these high-rise buildings and they’re all outside windows, and they reflect each other . . . I used to go downtown and sketch them and take photographs… and then I did watercolour paintings of them,” she said. “I just like to look at whatever.”
Her reflection paintings are being showcased at the Qualicum Beach Art Supply Gallery until late September. Her art shows reflections of boats, the beach and docks painted in oil.
She said she likes to paint in watercolour, but it’s easier and cheaper to paint in oil.
“Watercolour is much more difficult,” she said, “it’s easier to make a mistake.”
At The Old School House she attended water colour painting classes after she moved to Qualicum Beach in 1987 before she began to teach classes herself. She was an artist at The Old School House for 14 years and was involved in all types of art events like the Grand Prix of Art, the Garden Party Auctions and the Art in Action.
She has been painting for 80-some-odd years, she said, but didn’t attend university until she was 50.
I wasn’t a painter, I was a drawer,” Stevens said. “I always had a pencil in my hand.”
A resident of Qualicum Beach for 27 years, she taught water colour classes at TOSH and drew realistic portraits of students. “I like kids and I can really draw,” she said. “I would draw pencil portraits of the little kids for $2 each.”
One day she drew 30 portraits, but said it didn’t take her long to draw, about six minutes each per child.
Each of her paintings at the Art Supply took between four to 10 hours to complete.
She said she enjoys the Renaissance period of art and looks to the old artwork as inspiration. She said her paintings are realistic because she knows how to draw.
“The reason people aren’t realistic is because they can’t draw.”
“I tend to be realistic because I can draw,” she said.
She said she takes photographs of the scene first and then paints from the photograph.
Her paintings can be seen at the Qualicum Beach Art Supply gallery until late September.
